The History of the Peloponnesian War

Page: 42

This interval was spent in sending embassies to Athens charged with
complaints, in order to obtain as good a pretext for war as possible, in
the event of her paying no attention to them. The first Lacedaemonian
embassy was to order the Athenians to drive out the curse of the goddess;
the history of which is as follows. In former generations there was an
Athenian of the name of Cylon, a victor at the Olympic games, of good
birth and powerful position, who had married a daughter of Theagenes, a
Megarian, at that time tyrant of Megara. Now this Cylon was inquiring at
Delphi; when he was told by the god to seize the Acropolis of Athens on
the grand festival of Zeus. Accordingly, procuring a force from Theagenes
and persuading his friends to join him, when the Olympic festival in
Peloponnese came, he seized the Acropolis, with the intention of making
himself tyrant, thinking that this was the grand festival of Zeus, and
also an occasion appropriate for a victor at the Olympic games. Whether
the grand festival that was meant was in Attica or elsewhere was a
question which he never thought of, and which the oracle did not offer to
solve. For the Athenians also have a festival which is called the grand
festival of Zeus Meilichios or Gracious, viz., the Diasia. It is
celebrated outside the city, and the whole people sacrifice not real
victims but a number of bloodless offerings peculiar to the country.
However, fancying he had chosen the right time, he made the attempt. As
soon as the Athenians perceived it, they flocked in, one and all, from the
country, and sat down, and laid siege to the citadel. But as time went on,
weary of the labour of blockade, most of them departed; the responsibility
of keeping guard being left to the nine archons, with plenary powers to
arrange everything according to their good judgment. It must be known that
at that time most political functions were discharged by the nine archons.
Meanwhile Cylon and his besieged companions were distressed for want of
food and water. Accordingly Cylon and his brother made their escape; but
the rest being hard pressed, and some even dying of famine, seated
themselves as suppliants at the altar in the Acropolis. The Athenians who
were charged with the duty of keeping guard, when they saw them at the
point of death in the temple, raised them up on the understanding that no
harm should be done to them, led them out, and slew them. Some who as they
passed by took refuge at the altars of the awful goddesses were dispatched
on the spot. From this deed the men who killed them were called accursed
and guilty against the goddess, they and their descendants. Accordingly
these cursed ones were driven out by the Athenians, driven out again by
Cleomenes of Lacedaemon and an Athenian faction; the living were driven
out, and the bones of the dead were taken up; thus they were cast out. For
all that, they came back afterwards, and their descendants are still in
the city.